Now let’s rewind just 2 minutes back into the memories of my friend Pritha who narrated me this incident on an ISD call from Munich at 2 a.m. one night and called it “hysterically funny”................

The year was 2010. It was a sunny weekend morning in Munich, Germany. Just the perfect day for some exploration. So Pritha and her friends set out to Fussen, from there they planned to head to the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.

Neuschwanstein is the fairy-tale castle that had held Walt Disney dumbstruck on a day in the 1930s while he was driving past it and it had eventually inspired him to incorporate the castle as the iconic Disney logo.

So there was Pritha & Co., at Fussen, trying to figure out their way to the bus station to get on a bus to Hohenschwangau, when they spotted a middle aged German gentleman nearby. As in any such situation, the first thing that comes to mind is to approach the locals who can guide you the best and that’s exactly what they did.

“Hello Sir”, they said to the German gentleman and in their broken German continued, “Der Weg zur Bushaltestelle?”(The way to the bus stop?)

What came next was unexpected!

Germany asked “Indians??”

India replied “Yes!”

Germany threw up his hands and triumphantly replied “Raj Kapoor Awaara!!!”- as if he was playing Close Up Antakshari’s buzzer round.

India was bowled over! “Kya poocha aur kya jawab mila...”

And then in his German accent he sang -“Aawaara hoon... Aawaara hoon...

Ya gardish mein hoon aasmaan ka taara hoon... Aawaara hoon....”, and with that he started dancing on the road – Raj Kapoor style. And along he went singing and dancing and forgetting that he had to tell them directions to King Ludwig’s castle.

And what happened to our friends? The Indians were flabbergasted! They were rooted to their spot, probably feeling as dumbstruck as Walt Disney has felt when he had looked upon Neuschwanstein for the first time.

After the brief moment of shocked look on their face, they burst into fits of laughter - hysterically. In shudh desi bhasha it is called "Pet pakad pakad ke hasna!".

“Jai Ho, India!”they said, and looked around to find their next target.